D.C.'s 1 percent comes through for the Kennedy Center

Construction will finally get underway early next month at the Kennedy Center, where a multiyear, $125 million expansion project just scored a huge boost from Jacqueline Mars, the 75-year-old, Washington-area billionaire heiress whose family got rich from the candy business. (Yes, that Mars.) Mars — who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge after a fatal car crash a few years ago — recently committed $10 million of her estimated $23 billion fortune to the Kennedy Center’s massive overhaul, which blew past its budget and won’t be completed until 2018. David Rubenstein, who serves as Kennedy Center chairman, as well as CEO and founder of Carlyle Group, kicked off donations in 2013 with a record-breaking $50 million gift to the cultural institution and performing arts center. New York-based Stephen Schwarzman, a big gun in finance and CEO of The Blackstone Group, joins Mars at the $10 million level. Not to be overlooked, Washington socialite and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, who like Mars attends several local charity galas on the social circuit each year — and who is rumored to have the best jewelry collection in town — pledged $1 million.